


I Won't Dance

by QueerOnTilMorning



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 5+1 Things, A little bit of Benverly in my life, A little bit of Hanbrough by my side, Background ships:, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Dirty Talk, Eddie Kaspbrak Has Issues, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eventual Smut, First Time, Fix-It, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Intercrural Sex, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Memory Loss, Mixtape, Pining, Possessive Eddie Kaspbrak, Prom, Sexual Fantasy, Stanley Uris Lives, Underage characters discussing masturbation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:07:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22408444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueerOnTilMorning/pseuds/QueerOnTilMorning
Summary: Five times Eddie didn't dance with Richie, and one time he did.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 107
Kudos: 304





	1. In the Crowded Lonely Night

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the jazz standard "I Won't Dance"

1.

Eddie isn't asleep, even though his bedtime was two hours ago. (He's _ thirteen.  _ He's too old to have a bedtime, but when he says that to his mother she just folds her arms and says "You are  _ not _ too old to get a good night's rest," and the look in her eyes does not encourage debate.) He's lying in bed, missing his friends, trying to ignore the horrible itching of his arm under the cast, when he hears a tap on the window.

Richie is outside, grinning in at him, which is something of a surprise because he's on the second floor. "What the _ fuck," _ Eddie hisses, and for a horrible second he thinks it's the clown. Then he realizes Richie has scaled the tree in his yard and is straddling a branch, leaning so far forward he's about to lose his balance just so he can reach the glass.

"What the fuck," says Eddie again, but he's opening the window as he says it, wrapping his good arm around Richie's skinny waist to haul him over the sill. "It's the middle of the fucking  _ night, _ you dick. And you haven't talked to me in a fucking week."

Richie drops onto the floor in a haphazard pile of limbs. "Good to see you too, fuckface."

"You couldn't come over at a normal fucking time? Through the  _ door _ ?" Eddie's ribbing Richie like they always do, but underneath it, he's pissed off for real. He broke his arm, and all his friends just bailed on him, like he's no good to them if he can't ride bikes and rough-house and swim in the quarry. They've been off having fun without him while he smothers in boredom and his mother's scrutiny.

Scrambling to his feet, Richie scowls. "You think I haven't tried?"

Eddie looks at him blankly, and realization dawns on Richie's face, his eyes widening behind his glasses. "Oh, shit. You thought we hadn't tried."

"You have?" A tightness in Eddie's chest starts to relax. Maybe he hasn't been abandoned after all.

"Eddie, I--we come to your house every day. Your mom won't let us in. She doesn't even answer the door anymore. She just glares at us through the window until we give up and leave."

The relief Eddie felt for one moment vanishes, replaced by cold fury. "Fuck," he says. He's been sitting here all alone, thinking no one cares about him, while his friends have been turned away again and again. She let him think he'd been abandoned--she _ wanted _ him to think that. "God dammit.  _ Fuck _ her."

"Hey, I would, but--"

"Don't." Eddie squeezes his eyes shut, bites down hard on his tongue. He can't, won't, absolutely refuses to cry in front of Richie.

"I'm sorry," Richie says. Eyes still closed, Eddie hears him shifting his weight awkwardly, not sure what to do.

"It's okay," Eddie says, even though they both know it isn't. She  _ wanted _ this. His heart has been breaking, all these days alone, and she wanted it to break. That's the kind of person she is. His mother, whom he is supposed to trust to take care of him. His mother, whom he can't escape.

Eddie clenches his fists until his nails chew his palms, then shakes the tension out of his arms with an explosive sigh. "Fuck," he says again, and then "Thanks for coming, Richie. You're a good friend."

"Of course," Richie says, patting him awkwardly on the arm. He adds, "You weren't asleep, right?"

"No, I was up."

"Spanking it?"

Eddie feels his ears get hot. "Jesus, you're gross. I changed my mind, I hate you."

"I'm going to forgive you for saying that, because I know you don't mean it." Richie beams at him, that huge goofy smile that Eddie has missed more than he's missed sunshine. "Anyway, I'm just teasing. I know you don't jerk off. You're way too terrified of your mom catching you."

His ears even hotter, his face bright red, Eddie snaps "Fuck you! I do, too!" before he can think better of it. Richie's grin, impossibly, widens.

"Oh  _ really? _ " he says. "Is cute little Eddie secretly as filthy-minded as the rest of us?"

"It's--oh my God, go away! No one is as filthy as you!" He's yelling in a whisper so his mom won't wake up; he doesn't actually want Richie to leave, and he certainly doesn't want Sonia to fling him bodily from the window, which seems like a distinct possibility if they're discovered.

"No, come on, this is amazing. It's like finding out a teddy bear watches porn. Tell me everything."

"I don't watch fucking porn!"

"You don't watch  _ fucking _ porn? What other kind  _ is _ there?" Richie's eyes are enormous, all innocent curiosity.

"I'm going to kill you."

"Hey, whatever gets you off, Eds." Why,  _ why _ won't he stop talking about this? Eddie knows his face is scarlet, and it's all he can do to keep from crying, more from embarrassment than anger now. He can't possibly explain to Richie what goes through his head when he--does _ that. _ He can't even explain it to himself. It's too weird, the way he imagines the sexy scenes from movies, but swaps himself in for the girl. Richie would have a fucking field day with that--Eddie being so repressed he can't even picture a naked girl while he's masturbating.

He wonders, for a flickering instant, what Richie thinks about. His heart races at the thought with a disgust so intense it's almost excitement.

"Did you just climb in my window to talk about dicks?" Eddie says, and it comes out meaner than he intended. Richie's eyes go wide in a different way, and then his mouth presses in a thin line.

"No. Sorry," he says. He fishes in his back pocket. "I figured you were dying of boredom, so I made you this."

It's a mix tape, labeled so neatly it's hard to recognize as Richie's handwriting:  _ Spaghetti Songs! A Records Tozier Production _ .

"Really?" Eddie is strangely hesitant to take it. Richie's holding it like it's heavy, like there's a burden attached to the tape that Eddie's not sure he wants to accept.

"Yeah," Richie says with an affected shrug. "So you'd know that I was--that we're thinking about you, even though you're stuck up here."

Eddie swallows. The tears that threatened to spill a minute ago are still hanging around, waiting for him to let his guard down. "You really went out of your way to torture me with your shitty taste in music," he says, because if he says "thank you" he'll cry.

"You can write down all your complaints a piece of paper and send it to me in the mail," Richie suggests. "And then I can wipe my ass with it."

"Or we could just listen to it now, and I can tell you what I hate about it," says Eddie.

Richie's face lights up. "Perfect!"

He reaches for the tape player on Eddie's dresser, but Eddie paws through his backpack to find his Walkman instead. "So my mom doesn't hear."

"How are we going to dance if we're tied to your headphones?" Richie asks, grabbing Eddie's good hand and tugging on it as if to twirl him. His hand is so warm that Eddie yanks back, like he's been burned.

"Sorry," he says abruptly. "I, uh. I can't." Why doesn't he want to dance with Richie? They do this sort of thing all the time, messing around in the clubhouse, in the Barrens, wherever.

But not without the rest of their friends. Not when it's just the two of them, in the middle of the night, alone in this room that suddenly feels very small. Anything could happen right now, Eddie realizes, and no one would know except him and Richie. He doesn't know why that makes him feel so simultaneously terrified and thrilled.

"My mom," he says. Richie just keeps staring at him. "If we start dancing around up here, she'll hear the floor creaking and wake up."

Richie sighs. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He takes the Walkman from Eddie's hands and pops the tape in, apparently oblivious to the fact that Eddie is on the verge of some kind of freakout just from imagining the two of them dancing together. Richie's hands on his waist. Richie's thighs brushing against his own. That would be--so _ weird.  _ Wouldn't it? How has he never noticed how weird that is?

"Eds?" Richie flops on the bed, patting the spot next to him. Eddie's so disoriented he forgets to say "Don't call me Eds" as he gingerly sits down.

One ear bud for Eddie, one for Richie, the too-short cord bringing their faces close together. Richie leans toward Eddie until their knees are touching.

"You're gonna love this," Richie says, and it takes Eddie a moment to remember he means the tape.

There's a moment of whirring tape when Richie clicks play, layered over the sound of Richie's breathing, shallow with excitement. He's watching Eddie closely for his reaction. Eddie can't focus on anything, his gaze flicking from Richie's eyes to his lips and back again.

"Let's lie down," he says as the first song starts, because sitting with their heads together like this is making him feel really strange--hot and jittery and unable to catch his breath. They lie face to face, Eddie's head pillowed on his unbroken arm, Richie his mirror image. Immediately, he realizes that this is much worse. He is so aware of Richie like this--every shift of his weight reverberates through the mattress into Eddie's body, every flutter of his eyelashes stirs the air between them.

Richie's lips are moving, and Eddie spends several baffled seconds trying to decipher what he's saying before realizing he's mouthing the words to the song in their shared headphones. It's something by Billy Idol, Eddie is pretty sure. He can't remember what it's called, and he can't bring himself to ask. In fact, Eddie can barely move, frozen with fear that he'll accidentally touch Richie.

Also, he kind of… he kind of really _ wants _ to touch Richie. What the fuck is  _ that. _

"If I had the chance, I'd ask the world to dance," Richie sings in a tuneless whisper. "This song's perfect for you, Eds. Up here in your room,  _ dancing with yourself… _ " Richie raises his eyebrows and makes a jerk-off gesture.

Eddie knows he should fire back, but his mind is blank. "Fuck you, Richie," is the best he can manage, and Richie shrugs and grins like he knows Eddie can't stay mad at him. It's true; Eddie's not mad, exactly. He's… what the hell is he?

That tight feeling is moving through his chest, like he's going to have an asthma attack except he _ doesn't have asthma, _ there's nothing wrong with his lungs and there never has been, and he tries to focus on taking slow, deep breaths and not thinking about how easy it would be to intertwine his feet with Richie's. Then Richie yawns, stretches, and when he settles into place again he slings his arm over Eddie’s hip.

Is it possible to be relieved and horrified at the same time? The weight of Richie’s hand is warm and grounding, the carelessness of the gesture a welcome reassurance that Richie is not picking up on how strange Eddie’s acting. But now all Eddie can think about is that gentle pressure. Does Richie even realize they’re touching? If Eddie moves, will he take his hand back? That possibility fills Eddie with inexplicable dread.

“You like this one, right?” Richie asks quietly, and Eddie realizes the song has changed. Now they’re listening to “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” which is indeed one of Eddie’s favorites. Richie turned him on to the Pretenders a few years ago. This song in particular makes Eddie think of him, probably because they’ve listened to it together so much.

“Don’t get me wrong if I’m acting so distracted,” Chrissie Hynde sings, and it’s uncomfortably appropriate for this moment. Why does Eddie feel like every emotion he’s ever felt is trying to squeeze into his body at once? He closes his eyes and tries to focus on the lyrics, tune out whatever chaos is raging inside him. “I’m thinking about the fireworks that go off when you smile.” This song is about Richie, all right. When he smiles, everything gets so bright and loud and…

And…

Oh.

Behind his closed eyelids, things are falling apart and falling into place, all at the same time. “Don’t Get Me Wrong” is a fucking  _ love song. _ And whenever Eddie hears it, he thinks about  _ Richie. _

That’s why he’s so wound up about having Richie in his room at night. That’s why all the nerve endings in his body are focused on that one spot on his hip, where Richie’s palm is resting. That’s why the passing thought of Richie jerking off made him so fucking flustered.

Oh, fuck. Eddie  _ likes _ Richie.  _ That _ way.

And Richie is lying here on his bed, touching him so lightly, as if it doesn’t matter at all, and his face is absolutely--Eddie’s heart stumbles at the thought--absolutely close enough to kiss.

Does Richie  _ know? _

He can’t possibly, Eddie decides. He wouldn’t be here if he knew--he’d never want to be alone with Eddie again. He certainly wouldn’t be making him mix tapes with inadvertently suggestive songs on them. God, Richie would be so grossed out if he knew what was going through Eddie’s mind right now. He can’t find out. No one can.

Eddie is so afraid to open his eyes and look at Richie, afraid Richie will suddenly see it in his face. He can’t imagine what he’ll say, how he’ll act now that he understands what this huge, hideous feeling inside him means.

He almost laughs when he thinks of his inhaler, of the vindicated feeling that flooded him when he thought:  _ I’m not sick. I was never sick. _ How horribly fucking wrong he’d been. How he wishes what’s wrong with him were as simple as asthma.

Eddie keeps his eyes closed as the Pretenders give way to Bruce Springsteen, then Prince, then something he doesn’t recognize. Richie’s hand is so warm, his breathing so soft and normal. Eddie doesn’t deserve this closeness, he thinks. Just by being part of it, he’s twisting it into something dirty and wrong.

He should tell Richie to go. But he can’t bring himself to do that.

“Eddie?” Richie asks after a while. “You asleep?”

Eddie doesn’t answer. He feigns sleep while Richie eases himself off the bed, so careful and quiet Eddie aches with tenderness. For a long moment, he feels Richie standing there, looking down at him, as though making a decision. All Eddie can do is lie there, trying not to be seen.

“Night, Eds,” Richie finally whispers, and then he climbs out the window. Eddie waits a long time after the sound of Richie has faded into the night before he lets himself bury his face in a pillow and cry. 


	2. Not The Girl You're Taking Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: internalized homophobia, externalized homophobia, mild violence.

2.

Richie throws his blazer over the back of a folding chair and sits down, raking his hair back from his face. He's pink and laughing, tie undone, and Eddie is momentarily hypnotized by the bead of sweat in the hollow of his throat. If every single thing about his life were different, he'd lean forward and lick it away.

Fuck. He has to stop thinking shit like that.

"When are you gonna get up and dance, Eds?" Richie says, kicking the side of his shoe gently. "You're too cute in that suit to waste our whole prom night sitting in a corner."

"I don't have anyone to dance with," Eddie says, hoping the shifting shadows from the stupid disco ball hide the way he flushes when Richie calls him cute.

"So _ ask _ someone," Richie says, like it's easy, and Eddie wishes for the several millionth time he wasn't here. He doesn't have a date, obviously. It would be kind of shitty to ask a girl he's not really interested in, anchor her to a neurotic gay freakshow on what could otherwise be the romantic night of her dreams. Richie doesn't have a date either, and he insisted that it wasn't weird for Eddie to show up stag, but it's  _ different _ for Richie. He doesn't have a date because he couldn't decide whether to ask Jenny Reid or Jennie McNamara, either of whom would have said yes, and tonight he's already danced with both of them  _ and _ Chelsea Ford _ and _ Bev.

It's fine for Richie to go to prom alone, because if he asks a girl to dance she'll say yes. And even if she doesn't, Richie won't be destroyed. Eddie saw it earlier. Alyssa Andrews was talking to Connor Bowers, and Richie strolled right over and into the middle of their conversation. He said something to Alyssa that made Connor roll his eyes and walk away. Then Alyssa told Richie to fuck off--not that Eddie could read her lips, but it was obvious from her expression--and he just shrugged and wandered back to the Losers' table. If that happened to Eddie, with half their class watching, he'd have walked right out of the high school gym and thrown himself into a storm drain. And he doesn't even  _ want _ to dance with Alyssa Andrews.

"I'm not going to ask someone," Eddie mumbles, not meeting Richie's eyes. "No one here wants to dance with me."

"Bev would!" Richie protests. It's probably true--okay, it's definitely true. Bev hasn't sat down since she arrived. She's danced with Bill and Ben and Stan and Ben and Mike (to the visible chagrin of his cheerleader girlfriend) and Richie several songs in a row and Ben again, and when none of them are available or have the energy to keep up with her she dances alone.

She looks amazing in the pale-green dress she made herself, her eyes sparkling, her lips sugary orange from punch even though Eddie hasn't seen her stop moving long enough to take a drink.

Bev is beautiful, and that's why the last thing Eddie wants to do is dance with her. People  _ look _ at Bev--they can't help it. If Eddie gets too close to her, people will look at  _ him.  _ And they might see that Eddie doesn't feel the way boys are supposed to feel when they dance with girls like Bev.

"I don't need a pity dance with Bev," Eddie snaps at Richie. "That's like--like going to prom with my  _ mom _ or something."

"Don't bring up your mom, Eds," Richie says, pulling a dramatic face and clasping his hands over his heart. "You know I'm still devastated she turned me down."

"Fucking Christ." Eddie buries his head in his hands as “500 Miles” begins to play.

"Seriously, dude, you're making me sad. If you're just going to sulk, what's the point of even being here? You might as well have stayed home and played cribbage with Sonia."

"Maybe I should have," Eddie says, his eyes still covered.

"Why are you acting like this?" Richie asks, sounding genuinely curious and more than a little hurt. His voice, open and earnest and wanting to know, makes Eddie feel shaky, erodes his resolve.

Eddie _ wants _ to tell him. It's been almost five years, and he's so tired of this secret, so fucking tired of the distance it creates between him and his best friend. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, he lets himself think for one moment. Maybe he could tell Richie. Maybe Richie could forgive him, and the ache of swallowing everything he wants to say could ease, and he'd be--well, he'd still be hopelessly in love with a straight guy, but maybe he wouldn't feel so alone.

But the silence stretches on too long, until Richie breaks it, as Eddie knew he would. "Okay, how about this? You tell me who you want to dance with, and we'll do the _ Grease _ thing."

"The what?"

"Don't fucking pretend we didn't watch that movie ten times the summer before seventh grade, Kaspbrak." It's true, but Eddie hasn't watched it  _ since _ then, because in retrospect he had a big stupid crush on John Travolta and that's not a feeling he cares to revisit. "You know, when that one guy grabs Sandy and dances off with her, and Danny ends up dancing with Cha-cha. I'll ask the girl you want to dance with, you ask Beverly, and then we pull the old switcheroo."

There are just…  _ layers _ of things that piss Eddie off in that suggestion. The idea that Richie can get a dance with any girl he wants. (The suspicion that he's not far wrong.) The implication that someone would have to be tricked into dancing with Eddie. The assumption that Eddie wants to dance with a girl at all.

"Jesus, Rich, can you lay off?"

"Fine." Richie shakes his head in irritation, his hair falling over his face in the way that makes Eddie want to tenderly brush it back, and  _ wow _ is this a bad time to be contemplating that. "Sorry for wanting you to have, like, five seconds of memories of our prom night that aren't depressing as shit. I'll just go fuck myself." He shoves back his chair and walks away.

Eddie wants to follow him, to apologize, to--what? Pull him into his arms for a slow dance, just the two of them, so close they can feel the music vibrating through each other's bodies as the rest of the world falls away?  _ Fat fucking chance, Kaspbrak. _

He stays where he is, scowling down at his hands on the table. Maybe Richie has told the other Losers what an asshole Eddie's being, or maybe they're just off actually enjoying themselves, but either way, no one comes to talk to him for a while. It's both a relief and a disappointment, being left alone.

But he's instantly nostalgic for solitude when someone does sit down beside him. Allen Schaefer was a second-string bully when they were kids, but with the Bowers gang all dead, missing, or institutionalized, Schaefer saw the asshole vacuum and stepped in to fill it. He hates the Losers, but he knows better than to fuck with them too much.

Unless one of them is alone. Like right now.

"What's the matter, Asscrack?" Schaefer says.  _ Oh, clever.  _ "You don't have a date?"

Eddie replies on instinct. "Yeah, but it's my own fault for fucking your mom so hard she broke her hip. Did she get the flowers I sent, by the way?" Stupid, stupid instinct.

Schaefer's eyes narrow. "Saw you talking with that faggot Tozier," he hisses. "He break up with you or something? What happened, is he pissed that you gave him AIDS?"

It's not the insinuation Eddie's gay that turns his stomach. He knows guys like Schaefer throw that accusation around like confetti; it doesn't mean he actually suspects anything. It's not even that he's implying _ Richie's _ gay, though that's definitely worse.

It's the fact that the worst thing this shithead can think of to say about them is what Eddie wishes for most in the world. He  _ wants _ Schaefer's nasty comments to be true--not just about him, but about Richie. He'd gladly pull Richie down to his own shameful level, given half of a quarter of a chance. So how is he any better than Schaefer?

He's not, he realizes, and there's nothing he can do with that realization but punch Allen Schaefer in the nose.

It's not a very good punch, in large part because he's sitting down, but Schaefer is absolutely not prepared for it, and it connects with a satisfying _ snap. _ Eddie's hand hurts. Fuck it; he's dealt with worse. Schaefer's eyes are wide, too shocked to be angry, and blood is trickling from his nose.

Eddie feels better than he has all night.

"Holy shit, Eds," yells Richie, arriving in an instant with Bill and Bev at his sides, as though Eddie has activated the Loser Bat-Signal.

"You psycho faggot freak," Schaefer snarls. He's bleeding, and he looks like he's contemplating how to rip Eddie's guts out with his bare hands, and they're still sitting next to each in folding chairs at table covered in silver crepe paper, and suddenly the whole thing strikes Eddie as hilarious. He bursts out laughing.

"Dude, are you okay?" Richie has an arm around his shoulders now, helping him out of his seat and away from Schaefer. Does Richie think Eddie's the one who got hit?

"I'm fine," he says.

"What happened?" says Stan, showing up out of breath.

"This crazy _ motherfucker-- _ " Schaefer begins, but he's cut off by the strident voice of the assistant principal saying, "Kaspbrak!"

As usual, the adults have waited to intervene, long enough that Eddie probably could have killed Schaefer if he'd set his mind to it. The Derry credo:  _ First, prevent no harm. _ But now the chaperones are beginning to arrive, scoldings at the ready. "Kaspbrak, what were you thinking?"

"Sorry, Dr. Mitchell," Eddie says insincerely.

"I think you'd better head home," Dr. Mitchell says. "We can discuss this in my office on Monday."

"Sure." Eddie is surprised by his own indifference to the trouble he's probably in. Then again, graduation is less than a month away, and he got his college acceptances ages ago. There's not much more Derry High can do to him at this point.

"I'm gonna fucking murder you," Schaefer mouths at him behind Mitchell's back, and Eddie actually laughs.

His bike is leaning against a tree where he left it hours ago--it didn't seem worth the fight with his mother over whether he could take her car--and as the cool night air washes over him, Eddie is nothing but glad to be leaving. But when he hears footsteps behind him on the grass, his heart sinks.

"It's just me," says Richie.

"I know."

"The fuck was that?"

Eddie doesn't slow down. Richie catches up to him with no difficulty because of his stupid long legs like a sexy praying mantis. "I punched Schaefer."

"Yeah, but-- _ why? _ "

"You've met him, right?" Eddie shrugs. "He said some shit about us. It seemed like the thing to do." They've reached their bikes, and he has to stop and look at Richie. His throat feels tight. Richie's going to ask what Schaefer said, and whatever Eddie tells him, it's going to be too much--too revealing. Richie will keep asking questions, and Eddie will have to either tell the truth or run away and never speak to him again.

But instead, Richie breaks into a sudden grin, and Eddie's heated face cools to somewhere near bearable. "You're a fucking feral Corgi, Eds," he says. "You're so vicious but you're so cute."

"I am not cute!"

" _ So _ cute."

Richie would probably say that less if he knew how often Eddie thinks about it while he's jerking off. Out of nowhere, Eddie says, "I'm sorry I fucked up your prom night."

"You're kidding, right? You gave Allen Schaefer a nosebleed. This was the greatest prom in history. I'm gonna tell my grandkids about this." Richie rubs his chin. "Actually, do you think we could go back in there and get him to pose for a photo with us?"

“Oh, I dare you to go ask.” Richie turns like he’s taking Eddie up on it, and Eddie grabs his wrist. “No! Shit! I’m joking!”

Richie’s still smiling, and it takes Eddie longer than it should to remember to let go of his arm. “Sorry,” he says again, shoving his hands in his pockets so he can’t do anything else idiotic with them. “Not for punching Schaefer. I mean before, when I was being a prick.”

“Oh.” Richie waves it away. “No, it’s no big deal. I shouldn’t have been bugging you about it. I just…” He puffs up his cheeks and blows out a contemplative breath. “I got up in my head about tonight being perfect. We don’t have a lot of time left together, you know?”

“The Losers?” Eddie asks.

“Well, yeah, but you and me,” Richie says. He looks down at his feet. “You’re my best friend, Eds. I’m kind of scared shitless of losing you.”

Eddie’s heart twists like a wrung-out rag. God, he’s going to miss Richie so  _ fucking _ much, and he couldn’t even keep his temper so they’d have a night’s worth of good memories together. “You couldn’t lose me, Rich,” he promises. It sours on his tongue with the things he’s not saying--things that would make Richie leave him in the dust without a second’s thought--but he says it anyway. “We’ll always be friends.”  _ I want so much more from you than your friendship. So much more than I deserve. _

“Yeah?” Richie shoots him a watery smile.

“Yeah,” says Eddie. “I’m sorry I didn’t dance.”

“There’s still time,” Richie jokes, opening his arms as though welcoming Eddie in. Eddie actually takes a half-step forward, lifting his hands toward Richie’s shoulders, before he realizes what he’s doing and freezes.

Fuck.  _ Fuck. _ He almost  _ put his arms around Richie _ . As though they were going to  _ dance, _ here in the moonlight with crickets singing. As though Richie would spread his broad hands across Eddie’s back and sing softly into his hair. As though that’s something Eddie gets to have.

“Eds?” Richie’s staring at him, and Eddie doesn’t know what he sees in his face, but it must be awful because Richie’s eyes are huge.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Eddie chokes out, and then he’s on his bike and pedaling for home so hard his legs burn.

At school on Monday, Richie just asks him “How’s your knuckles, killer?” He doesn’t mention anything else about prom night, and Eddie never brings it up again.


	3. At Least I've Got You In My Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is where the fic earns its Explicit rating, although technically it's just Eddie on a lonely night away from home.

3.

Propped up on pillows in a hotel bed, Eddie comes across a late-night host he vaguely recognizes interviewing some comedian. The comic is tall and not exactly attractive--he's too goofy, sitting scrunched into his armchair with one long leg tucked up underneath him and no regard for how much he's wrinkling his suit.

But something about him makes Eddie stop anyway. Maybe it's his big, overeager smile, his obvious desire to be liked. He's hyper-focused on what the host is saying, wide eyes behind thick hipster glasses, nodding so earnestly his curly hair flops over his forehead. It's cute, Eddie admits to himself.

More than cute. It makes him imagine what it would be like to be on the receiving end of that attention, that almost hungry gaze.

Yeah, that could work.

It would be quicker to just pull up some porn on his phone, but part of his hotel room ritual is pretending it's unplanned. He flips through channels like he's just going to watch a movie and fall asleep, until he finds a guy he can't resist. Someone who makes him hard in spite of himself.

He only does this on business trips; he can't, absolutely cannot bring himself to jerk off to thoughts of men in the house he shares with his wife. Not even when she's asleep. Not even when she's not home. Somehow, she'd know. He's aware that this is paranoid, but you don't get to be a gay man married to a woman for almost a decade without a wildly overdeveloped sense of caution.

Eddie slides the fingertips of one hand into the waistband of his boxers and, with the other hand, turns the volume up. He needs to hear the guy's voice.

"... rumor you were going to be on Dancing with the Stars?" asks the host.

The comic makes a horrified face and shakes his head. "God, no. My name and the word 'dancing' don't belong in the same sentence."

_ That's for sure, _ thinks Eddie, then wonders why he thought that.

"No, sometimes my girlfriend drags me out to these clubs with her friends--" Why does the fact that he has a girlfriend make Eddie grit his teeth? It's not like availability is a big factor for his current purposes.

Still. This guy seems… well, he seems annoying as hell, but kind of sweet. Eddie hopes the girlfriend, whoever she is, appreciates him.  _ I'd appreciate you, _ he thinks, sliding his hand downward, fingers brushing through his neatly trimmed pubic hair.

The comedian has nice hands, Eddie notices, hard to miss as the guy underscores one comment after another with huge gestures. Thick fingers, hairy knuckles. Strong.

He says something else Eddie misses, and then he's out of his chair doing some sort of Saturday Night Fever move, pointing up, then down.

"And that's you on the dance floor?" asks the host, laughing.

"No, no," says the comic. "That's me in the bedroom afterward, trying to find the G spot."

Ugh. Eddie rolls his eyes. Scratch the part about the guy being sweet. Maybe he'll keep channel-surfing, find someone else.

But.

He can picture it, is the thing. The tall comedian, with his messy hair and his wrinkled suit and his stupid jokes, standing near the wall at a club, watching his girlfriend dance. (Eddie has never set foot in a club; the backdrop of this fantasy probably comes from some movie he watched with Myra.) Looking cute but a little lost, like he doesn't know what to do with his hands.

Eddie has some ideas.

He imagines their eyes meeting across the crowd of dancers, the way he'd catch his breath when that burning gaze found his. It's so vivid in his mind, more like a memory than a fantasy, staring into those eyes thinking _ I can tell you want something, I can tell you haven't found it yet. Is it me? Are you looking for me? _

Eddie runs his fingertips over the length of his thickening cock, but doesn't take hold, not yet.

"--always  _ say _ they want a guy with a sense of humor," the comedian is grumbling, "but then you do one fifteen-minute bit about fucking their Great-Aunt Marjorie and they're like 'wait, no.' Come on, no take-backs! It's not my fault you weren't more specific." The host is laughing so hard his face is red, which Eddie finds excessive.

"Maybe you're just not that fucking funny," he mutters.

He imagines a knowing smile on the guy's face, a sidelong glance that's meant for Eddie alone.  _ Well, if it's not my jokes, what is it about me that's got your motor running? _

_ Something to do with that big mouth, _ Eddie replies in his mind. Then he turns and walks away, not checking to see if the guy is following him--which, since this is his fantasy, Eddie knows he is. He circles his fingers loose around his cock, stroking lazily, as he imagines shoving the guy up against a wall outside the club, kissing him hard and dirty. Slipping his tongue past his lips when the guy gasps in surprise. Groaning low and rough into his mouth.

On the television screen, the comedian is still talking too fast and too loud, but in Eddie’s mind he’s at a loss for words.  _ I’m not, _ he says, then tries again.  _ I’ve never. _

_ Now you have, _ Eddie replies.

Objectively, Eddie’s fantasy life is hilarious. He knows this. It’s absurd that he jerks off to elaborate scenarios of seducing straight men and fucking their brains out. Eddie Kaspbrak, married to a woman, faithful to a fault, hasn’t even kissed a man since college--in the eyes of every other person in the world, Eddie  _ is  _ a straight man. An unusually uptight one, at that.

But his cock is getting harder by the minute, thinking about the curly-haired comedian, wanting to throw him down on a bed like this and blow his fucking mind. Touch him in ways he’s never dared imagine, make him feel things he didn’t know were possible. Things Eddie himself has, in real life, never felt. He wants to take, to demand, to devour; he wants those bright eyes focused on his face, that big mouth begging for more.

One hand still cupping his dick, Eddie glides the other over his stomach and up to his bare chest, imagining the other man's body under his palms. The comedian's chest would feel different, of course. Dark rough hair, strong muscles under a layer of softness--Eddie can feel it so clearly, the texture of the hair, the heat of his skin. He rolls his own nipple between thumb and forefinger. The gasp that whispers from his lips doesn't sound at all like him, and Eddie's glad of that. He wants to be touching someone else, exploring the terrain of an unfamiliar body.

"Yeah, that's exactly my type," says the comedian to the host. "The kind of woman who would totally be pen pals with a serial killer in prison, but she keeps forgetting to buy stamps. I'm the lower-maintenance alternative."

"Please," Eddie says. "You're low-maintenance like a condemned building. What's the point of fixing it up if it just needs to be bulldozed?" He wonders if it's weird to heckle someone and jerk off to him at the same time. It probably is. What the fuck does Eddie know about normal sexual behavior?

He just--something about this guy is fucking  _ getting _ to him. He's not really that funny, and his laughter sounds rehearsed, but Eddie knows there's something else behind that too-polished grin. He wants to find it, to lick the fake smile off his face and see something raw and vulnerable. He wants to make this guy forget the stupid jokes he's practiced, forget about words altogether.

Eddie wants to make him moan. He can hear it in his head, the low, desperate vibration as the guy drops his head back and shuts his eyes, and it makes Eddie moan in real life. He's still just barely touching himself, but he's hard as _ fuck _ and a little precome spurts into his palm. Rubbing it up and down his shaft, he tightens his grip.  _ You like that, huh?  _ he imagines whispering into the guy's ear.

The talk show cuts to a commercial, so Eddie switches off the TV. He has enough to work with. God, he wants this so much. Wants to tear that rumpled suit off, leave it in a heap on the floor, suck bruises onto the guy’s chest, his stomach. The comedian staring up at him, totally entranced and unresisting, as Eddie yanks his briefs down and his cock springs free.

_ My girlfriend, _ he imagines the guy saying halfheartedly, and Eddie holds his breath as he mouths the reply,  _ Bet she can’t do this like I can. _

Again, it’s funny--or could be, from a distance, because Eddie has never in his  _ life _ had a dick in his mouth. Never gotten anywhere close. But in the fantasy his throat opens wide and easy, taking that perfect cock so fucking deep, relaxing his jaw, feeling as much as he hears the trembling sob the guy lets out as Eddie’s wet, frantic heat envelops him.

Lying on the bed, fucking into his fist, Eddie lets his lips go slack and opens them wide. The hand that’s not jerking furiously between his legs slides up his chest to his throat. He lets his tongue slip past his lips like he’s waiting for something, so close he can taste it. “Ohh, ahh,” he groans, open-mouthed, picturing the tall comedian prone and helpless underneath him. He imagines his own noises in the other man’s mouth, the sound of someone skating past the edge of coherence, coming apart on Eddie’s tongue. He’s delirious with lust; Eddie is in control.

He wants to  _ feel _ it, so he sucks the first two fingers of his free hand into his mouth.  _ You’re mine, _ he thinks,  _ give me everything you’ve got. _ Adds another finger, lavishing all three with saliva. He pushes them further in, until he’s almost gagging, and it feels  _ amazing.  _ The sensation of those muscles reflexively tightening around his fingers sends sparks down his spine and straight to his groin. His belly is a burning coal, his balls hot and tight, the hand on his cock losing its rhythm as he gets closer and closer.

In his mind, he’s digging his fingers into the comedian’s thick, hairy thighs, holding on tight as he takes more and more, moaning in appreciation from deep in his extremely full throat. He pushes his fourth finger into his mouth and loves the way his lips stretch, just this side of painful. There are tears in his eyes. His tongue laps desperately at the undersides of his fingers.

_ Eddie, _ he imagines the guy saying in astonishment, and then again, his voice breaking so he can’t even finish the word:  _ Eds-- _

Eddie  _ slams _ into his hand when the orgasm hits, the sound of his cries muffled by the fingers in his mouth as hot come splashes over his belly and chest. Wave after wave, and he’s whimpering as he rides it out, working his cock until it’s utterly depleted. Finally, he falls back onto the pillow, resting his spit-slick fingers on his chest and working his sore jaw from side to side.

He waits for the shame and self-loathing to hit, but they don’t, not yet. He just feels tired and wrung out and  _ finished, _ as though he’s accomplished something. He doesn’t look at the clock or leap for the shower. He doesn’t text Myra a guilty “I love you” like he normally does at this point.

Usually, the fantasy is over the second Eddie comes, but tonight he lets it stretch out just a little longer. He imagines crawling up the comedian’s exhausted, sweat-soaked body, resting his head on that broad chest and listening to the other man’s heartbeat as it slows to normal.

_ Is this what you wanted?  _ he thinks, and imagines a soft, affirmative rumble, a gentle hand in his hair.

Eddie thinks he should look up what that comedian’s name is, maybe watch some of his clips on Youtube. He wants to see that face again. But of course, by the time he wakes up the next morning, he’s forgotten. The name  _ Richie Tozier, _ which would mean nothing to him anyway, never crosses his mind.


	4. When Nobody Believes Me, I Know You Will

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: life-threatening injury (don't worry, he's fine); mention of canon-typical homophobia.

Dying hurts less than Eddie imagined.

No, that's not quite it. The pain is present, and it's immense, unthinkable. It's just that Eddie _ cares _ less about the pain than he expected he would. The spider claw (do spiders have claws, he doesn't know, he's bleeding out, give a bitch a break) is only shredding his body, and Eddie's association with his body is quickly approaching its end.

Worse than the pain is the regret, and the fear. Fear that the regret won't stop when he dies, that it will follow him into the darkness of whatever comes next. Regret for, well, everything.

It's not that he minds dying, particularly. If saving Richie's life costs him his own, he's willing to make that exchange. It's a hero's death, a better death than someone like Eddie has a right to expect, and he wouldn't take it back. He just wishes he could take back the preceding thirty years.

God, Eddie thinks, his life has been so _ stupid. _ Marrying a woman he doesn't love, doing a job he doesn't care about, deliberately turning away from anything that feels too good or makes him too happy. Choosing stability over any chance at joy. He spent so much time hiding, deflecting, too afraid to be himself, and what did it get him? The boy whose life was organized around not dying, yet here he fucking is, dying anyway.

He wishes he'd kissed Richie, when they stood there on the doorstep of hell and Richie said  _ You're braver than you think. _ He wishes he'd proved him right by saying,  _ I love you. _ Richie wouldn't have said it back, obviously, but at least he'd know. This is what Eddie hates the most: that his life is over and no one ever knew him.

"Richie," he says, or tries to, but he's not sure whether any sound comes out. He's misplaced his voice somewhere. It was right here, but--oh, he's wrong, his voice is exactly where he left it. Eddie's the misplaced one. He's farther and farther away, and whatever he wants to say to Richie fades like the agony in his chest.

***

When he regains consciousness, the pain is much worse. Or maybe it just bothers him more, now that he doesn't seem to be actively dying, and is therefore stuck with this body and its complaints for a little while longer. Everything is white and humming, like he's woken up inside a fluorescent light. There are blurry white shapes in the whiteness, and a little voice in his head wonders  _ Is this heaven? _ But his chest hurts like a motherfucker, so that's probably a no.

And he's never done anything interesting enough to warrant going to hell, so. Eddie Kaspbrak, welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.

He coughs, and that cough awakens an absolutely all-consuming thirst. His mouth feels like it's been fucking mummified, like he hasn't had a drink of water in days, maybe decades. 

_ Maybe I haven't,  _ he thinks.  _ Maybe I really did die, and now they're bringing me back to life in some fucked-up sci-fi lab, and it's three hundred years in the future, and all my friends are dead. _

"Water," he croaks.

"Eddie?" asks a voice. He can't identify whose it is, maybe because he's still too out of it, or maybe because the voice is too choked with emotion.

_ "Eddie!"  _ says someone else, or maybe two people at the same time, and then Eddie thinks he might have been too quick to assume he's not in hell, because something  _ huge _ is moving toward him through the white blur. It has too many arms, too many mouths, it moves to envelop and devour him and his throat is so dry he can't even scream--

\--and then his eyes finally focus and it's Richie's face looking down at him, and Stan is beside Richie, and Bev is stroking his hair while Bill holds his hand. Eddie has just enough time, before the nurse shoos them away, to look at the faces of everyone he loves in the world and understand that he's survived.

_ I made it, _ he thinks.  _ I have another chance. _

The elation lasts about three seconds before he's terrified again.

_ I'd better not fuck this up. _

***

Doctors and nurses come and go, nearly indistinguishable in Eddie's still-hazy vision. They all seem to be checking his fluids and squinting into various orifices, including the new one in the middle of his torso. Someone tells him what's wrong with him in tones that suggest they've already repeated this information several times, which makes Eddie feel vaguely guilty about not retaining any of it.

"How long?" he wants to know.

The person talking to him sounds surprised. "Well, I don't know. I didn't see the piece of rebar. Your friends pulled it out before they brought you in, which is--" Eddie's well aware of the dangers of removing an object from a stab wound, but the way he remembers it, that was the clown's call, not his friends'.

"No, how long was I unconscious?"

"Just over forty-eight hours. You're very lucky, Mr. Kaspbrak. With the injuries you suffered, it's practically miraculous that you're still alive."

They keep saying that, all the doctors and nurses and specialists and techs and whoever the fuck else is in and out of his room all day.  _ You're lucky to be alive. _ The fourth or fifth time Eddie hears it, he realizes that it means,  _ We don't understand how you're alive and it's really bothering us. _ They would like him to explain himself, but Eddie can't.

He can't even piece together the cover story his friends have apparently been telling--how's he supposed to have ended up impaled on rebar? Luckily, he's so genuinely disoriented it's not hard to convince people he has no idea what happened to fuck him up this badly.

Finally, the doctors leave him alone, and he drifts off to sleep for a few minutes. He's awakened by a nurse, somewhat less blurry than the others, checking his IV line.

"Where’s Richie?” he asks.

“Oh, your husband? He and all your friends are still in the waiting room,” says the nurse, and Eddie’s heart does flips that Simone Biles would envy.  _ How fucking long was I out, do I have amnesia, did I really--My fucking husband? _

Then his brain catches up with his emotions and he realizes that, of course, Richie must have pretended to be Eddie’s next of kin so the doctors would tell him what was going on. It’s an entirely pragmatic lie without so much as a hint of yearning behind it. Obviously.

“Can he--can I see them?”

The nurse disappears (he probably just walks out the door, but Eddie’s eyes still aren’t tracking that well), and some amount of time later, the Losers return. Fuck, Eddie  _ missed _ them when he was dead. His throat feels tight and hot with tears.

“Jesus, Eds,” Richie says, too gently. “You’re alive.”

Eddie’s mind is racing, as best it can while his grip on consciousness is still this precarious. This is his second chance, his Hail Mary opportunity to live an honest life, and he can’t waste it. He’s not going to crawl back into the closet he called home all these years. It’s time to tell his friends the truth, but he has to do it right. He needs to think this through, come up with a plan, a script.

“How are you?” Ben asks.

Eddie answers, “Gay.”

There’s a very long pause, during which Eddie stares at Richie, his heart sinking as he watches his best friend’s brow furrow with dismay and confusion.

“Well, good,” says Stan. “We thought you were fucking dead.”

Eddie snorts with laughter. It hurts his chest. He vaguely remembers one of the doctors saying he has some broken ribs. But it’s worth it, to be here, breathing air and laughing with his friends. Even if Richie is running his hands through his hair, eyes darting around the room like he’s suddenly afraid to look at Eddie.

"Hell of an opener, Eddie," says Bill.

"Yeah, sorry, that was weird," he says. "It's just--I got stabbed, and I thought that was it, and I felt really stupid for never even saying it out loud." He shrugs, uncomfortable, wishing Richie would look at him, wishing everyone else would stop. "My whole life, I never even tried to be with--someone I wanted to be with, you know? It seemed like a huge fucking waste."

"Me too," said Mike.

"You wasted your life, Mikey?" Bev asks, looking concerned.

"No. Well, yeah, actually, I spent it in Derry. But I meant, me too, I'm gay."

Richie's head whips around to stare at Mike, eyes wide. "No," he says, sounding stunned. "You had, like, a million girlfriends. You didn't even go to our school and you dated every girl there." Eddie is starting to worry--like, seriously worry--that Richie is not okay with this, Richie can't deal with his friends being gay, Eddie just got Richie back and now he's fucked things up again.

"Yeah, it's called being in denial," Mike says kindly. "I was  _ already _ the Black home-schooled kid with dead parents. I couldn't deal with being gay on top of that."

"Damn, Mike," Eddie says, trying to sound jovial and not look at Richie. "I wish you'd told me. I might have had a shot with you if I'd known we were the only two queers in town." He's never said the word  _ queer _ out loud before, and he's surprised by how much he likes the sound of it.

"We weren't," starts Mike, then cuts himself off. But Bev has caught the scent.

"Oh my God, Mike, you were getting some, weren't you? Not just fake girlfriend action. Tell us, tell us!"

Mike chews on his lip. "I… yeah, okay, there was a guy back then. For a little while."

"A guy," says Bill scornfully. "Just a guy. Some unmemorable guy without a name."

Stan looks from Mike to Bill like he wishes he had popcorn.

"Well, excuse me for not assuming you'd want me to talk about it," Mike says, eyebrows raised. "You sure as shit didn't want to talk about it  _ then. _ "

"Like you were any different," says Bill. "Your idea of pillow talk was 'anyway, I have chores to do.'"

"I had a lot of chores!"

Beverly is clearly delighted. Richie looks like he's doing complicated math in his head, possibly while stoned.

"You're married to a woman," Eddie protests, before remembering that he is too.

Bill smirks. "Bisexuality, Eddie. It's a thing."

"I thought you'd grow out of that," says Mike.

"Well, that was fucking biphobic of you," Bill shoots back. Eddie never imagined that his coming out to his friends would end up being so extremely not about him. He kind of loves it.

"No," says Richie. "No!"

The wound in Eddie's chest throbs as his whole body tenses.  _ Oh, fuck, here it comes. _

"What do you mean, no?" says Bill.

Richie gestures like he's struggling to get the words out. "No! You guys aren't--"

"Richie, calm down," Ben suggests, but Richie steamrolls right over him.

"-- _ I'm _ the gay one!" He looks from Eddie to Mike to Bill as though pleading with them to be reasonable. "I'm the one who got 'fag' written on my locker! I'm the one who got my ass kicked the last day of tenth grade! I-- _ Fuck! _ "

He rakes his hands through his hair, balls them up in fists. Eddie pointedly does _ not _ think that he'd like to be the one pulling Richie's hair.

"I was so fucking scared," Richie says in a smaller voice. "And you guys were…" He sinks into a chair. Stan comes close enough to rest a hand on his shoulder. "I thought I was the only one," Richie finishes.

"I thought I was," says Eddie. His heart is racing.  _ How could he not have known? _

"Shit," says Bev. "I can't believe you were all dealing with this and I didn't know." Her voice is shaky, and Ben wraps an arm around her. "I'm sorry. Richie, I'm so sorry."

Richie takes a deep breath, rubs at his eyes under his glasses, then sits up and smiles at them all like nothing has happened. "Chill out, Marsh," he said. "It's not your fault I'm a brilliant actor."

Eddie laughs, even though he's still aching in a way that has nothing to do with his physical trauma. It's bad enough that he felt so alone as a kid. Knowing that Richie was just as isolated makes it a hundred times worse. His best friend was hurting, and Eddie did nothing to help him. If he had just been brave enough--

No. There's no use tearing himself apart over a past that can't be changed. Today, he made a better choice. Today, he told the truth.

"Does anyone know a good divorce lawyer?" he asks.

Richie gasps theatrically. "Eddie, give me a chance! I can change," he says, and Eddie's momentarily baffled until he remembers that Richie is his fake husband.

"Uh, I didn't mean…" Apparently he still has enough blood in his body to blush, because his face heats up at the thought. Okay, so he told _ part _ of the truth. But Richie's obviously dealing with enough right now, and doesn't need to be confronted with Eddie's childhood crush on him, now fully restored and in living color.

"It's fine," says Richie. "If I should stay, I would only be in your way."

"No," says Stan.

"So I'll go," Richie says, rising to his feet, his voice taking on a musical resonance. "But know--"

"Please stop forever," Beverly suggests.

"I'll think of you every step of the way," Richie croons, his eyes locked on Eddie's, a grin spilling across his face. Eddie can't help laughing in response. There are tears in his eyes, too, but he thinks he can get away with that. It's been kind of an emotional day.

"And I," Richie belts, reaching for Eddie, "will always… love youuuu!" He grabs Eddie's hand as if to pull him out of the hospital bed. As if to wrap him up in his arms.

Eddie yanks away. "Do not fucking touch me, I have like ten broken ribs," he yells, and the rest of the Losers are giggling so hard that--he thinks, he hopes--no one notices Eddie's also crying.


	5. Take Me Down Like I'm A Domino

5.

"Have they been playing the same fucking song for the last fifteen minutes, or does all dance music sound the same?" Eddie says. "And what the fuck is this bartender doing, fermenting every individual shot by hand? Why is this line so fucking _ slow? _ "

Richie grins at him fondly. "This is _ exactly _ what I had in mind when I said we should cut loose and have a good time."

"I fucking told you I wouldn't be fun at a club, Richie." He said that many times, in fact, but Richie insisted that Eddie's first newly-divorced-and-out trip to California had to include a night at Richie's favorite gay hotspot.

"And I told you that you might not _ have _ fun, but you'd still  _ be _ fun. And look! I was right."

Eddie returns Richie's smile, because he can't not, but he still mutters "Eat a dick" afterward.

"If all goes well tonight," Richie says, still beaming, and Eddie's heart stumbles. Of course that's the plan. Richie wants to get laid, and he wants to get _ Eddie _ laid, and he's apparently never considered the extremely obvious two-birds-one-bed solution. So Eddie gets to watch all night as twinks throw themselves at Richie, who in addition to being tall and broad-shouldered and hot is also  _ famous _ ; and while Eddie's dying inside, the oblivious love of his life will throw some second-bests his way.

Instead of saying any of that, he groans, "I'm too old to be here."

"You're only as old as you feel, Eds," says Richie. "So go feel up a twenty-five-year-old."

"I literally hate you."  _ I love you so much I can't stand it. _

Eddie wishes fruitlessly that he'd gotten around to coming out _ before _ getting skewered by an alien appendage. Up until then, he was in great shape for a forty-year-old. He could have gone out in a muscle shirt and looked just as good as a guy ten years younger. Now, though, he feels out of place and frumpy in one of the loose-fitting button-downs he wears these days, since tighter shirts cling too noticeably to the sunburst of scar tissue that takes up half his chest. If he dances too close to someone, they'll be able to _ feel _ it--the way his body is stuck back together like a child's art project with too much glue, lumpy and uneven.

A man in leather pants walks past them, then stops, looks up and down at Richie--those shoulders, that jaw, the dark chest hair framed by the v-neck of his shirt. Eddie loved Richie back when he was a skinny weirdo in oversized Hawaiian shirts, but now the handsome bastard has gone and grown into his looks, and it's unbearable. Leather Pants Guy tilts his head toward Richie like an invitation. Eddie wishes he had a fence post to hurl through his face.

"Trashmouth," the guy says, then licks his lips like a fucking sleazeball. Richie looks flustered, but Eddie can't tell if it's good-flustered from being hit on, or bad-flustered from being recognized. Either way, he hates it.

"No autographs tonight," Eddie says, angling his body so he's between Richie and Leather Pants.

The guy sneers. "Come find me when you ditch your _ handler," _ he says to Richie over Eddie's head, then saunters off through the crowd.

"Oh, is that how it is?" Richie asks. "I try to show you a good time, and you cock-block me?" He's not pissed, much to Eddie's relief. And he's not watching Leather Pants walk away.

"You want to go after him?" Eddie says, confident that Richie doesn't. "Have fun powdering his chafed ass when you finally peel off all that cowhide."

Richie laughs. "Hell no. I'm not about to get topped by a guy that much younger than me. Can you picture saying 'choke me, Daddy' to a fucking millennial?"

Unfortunately, due to complications from imagining Richie saying "choke me, Daddy," Eddie is briefly dead and can't answer the question. When he regains the power of speech, they're at the front of the line and the bartender is staring at him expectantly.

“Rum and choke,” Eddie manages. Richie sputters with laughter. “ _ I will murder you, _ ” Eddie hisses, then says loudly “Rum and Coke!” The bartender hears him this time, and makes a show of mixing Eddie’s order carefully, in a cocktail shaker, like it’s not the  _ simplest fucking drink in the known universe. _ Eddie’s face is burning. When he has his glass and Richie has his Long Island iced tea, they circle back toward the dance floor, Eddie refusing to look at Richie.

Richie nudges him with an elbow. “That bear is totally checking you out,” he says, but Eddie doesn’t follow his pointing finger, just scowls into his drink. Richie elbows him again. “Hey,” he says, his voice softer. “I want you to have fun tonight. Come on, tell me who you think is cute. Let me be your wingman.”

Why couldn’t Richie have just left Eddie to die in a sewer when he had the chance? Eddie hazards a glance at him, but can’t maintain eye contact; Richie’s face is too open, too caring, too  _ close. _ Eddie would barely have to shift his weight to kiss him, and he can’t be standing here thinking shit like that. “Go dance,” Eddie says instead. “I’m fine.”

Richie huffs in frustration, but he does what Eddie says, holding his drink above his head as he moves through the labyrinth of bodies. Like metal filings toward a magnet, guys turn in Richie’s direction. Eddie hates all of them, specifically and personally.

As soon as Richie’s gone, Eddie knocks back his drink in one gulp. At least that way he can pretend he’s red-faced from the alcohol.

“You want another one of those?” says someone to his right. It’s a shy-looking man, on the skinny side, around Eddie’s age. He has a nice face, but there’s no way Eddie can flirt when Richie is twenty feet away with some dude’s ass gyrating against his fly.

“I’m here with someone,” Eddie says, which is not technically a lie, but it makes his face flush even more.

“Someone stupid enough to walk away from you?” the guy asks. He smiles, like he knows it’s a bad line, but he’s hoping it will make Eddie laugh. And… it kind of does. Eddie’s mouth quirks, anyway, and he doesn't say anything bitchy in response.

“Maybe ‘with’ is a strong word,” Eddie admits. The skinny guy steps a little closer. He smells good, Eddie realizes, some kind of cologne that makes him think of tall forests and deep shadows. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a blond sidle up to Richie and press a palm to his chest. Eddie looks back at the man beside him and doesn’t move away.

"I haven't seen you here before," says the guy. His eyes are deep and dark, maybe brown; it's hard to tell the color in this dim light.

Can Eddie do this? At some point he has to, right? He didn't come out just so he could spend the rest of his life yearning while Richie completely fails to notice. He wants to be wanted. "I'm visiting from out of town," he says, then adds "Staying with a friend," hoping the guy understands what he means:  _ I'm single, I don't know how to do this, keep talking to me. _ He's not going to go home with this guy or anything, but--maybe they'll dance. Maybe they'll kiss. Doesn't Eddie deserve a night like that, after all these lonely years?

"Eddie, my love!" Suddenly Richie is behind him, wrapping his arms around Eddie's waist and resting his chin on his shoulder. "When are you going to come dance with me?"

It always makes Eddie's heart quiver when Richie touches him so casually, scattering endearments like he's a Southern diner waitress. He craves that easy contact, stretches toward Richie's affection like a flower toward the sun. But in this moment, even as he sinks back into Richie's arms, anger blazes in his chest. Richie doesn't ever think about how it looks when he acts like this, doesn't realize he's driving Eddie crazy, doesn't consider what the skinny guy will assume when he sees how their bodies fit around each other. With just a gesture, Richie can ruin any chance of Eddie finding someone else. The fact that he doesn't know he's doing it makes it so much worse.

"Enjoy your stay," the skinny guy says. Then, with one last look at Eddie, he heads back toward the bar.

"Some wingman you are," Eddie says to Richie. It doesn't come out sounding like a joke, and Eddie supposes that's because it isn't one.

"What,  _ that _ guy?" Richie asks. "Come on, you could do so much better. You're out of that guy's league."

"Fuck's sake, Rich," Eddie snaps, pulling away and turning to face him. "I'm not even  _ in _ a league. I'm a divorced closet case Frankenstein, guys  _ never-- _ "

"Frankenstein's monster," Richie cuts him off.

"I… what?"

"Frankenstein was the doctor. If you're referring to the scars on your chest, you want to compare yourself to Frankenstein's monster."

What the _ fuck.  _ Richie is the most annoying person in  _ history _ and Eddie wants to kiss his  _ stupid fucking face. _ "You're such an asshole."

"Come on, Eds, don't be mad," Richie says, smiling down at him. "I just wanted you to come dance."

"I don't want to dance." Eddie's tense and hot and feels like crying, or screaming in Richie's face, or running away. He's just so damn tired of this. Of pretending he doesn't feel what he feels.

"Pretty please?" Richie takes Eddie by the hand, as if to pull him toward the dance floor, and Eddie can't stand it anymore.

"I said I don't fucking want to dance with you," he says, and then he grabs Richie by the front of his shirt and kisses him.

Richie goes "Mmff!" and tenses in Eddie's embrace, and Eddie thinks  _ well, that's it, I've fucked it all up. _

Then Richie softens, lips parting against Eddie's. At the same time, his hands wrap around Eddie's waist and pull him close. He kisses back, gently at first and then harder. Oh, God.  _ He kisses back _ . His tongue hovers politely at the threshold of Eddie's mouth until Eddie meets it with his own.

Eddie gulps air and dives back into the kiss, sucking Richie's bottom lip between his teeth, and Richie fucking _ moans, _ a deep ragged moan that comes from his chest and obliterates whatever lingering doubts Eddie might still have. Richie sounds wrecked. He sounds helpless. He sounds like he wants this so bad he can't think straight. He sounds _ exactly _ like Eddie feels.

The crowd thrums past them, unconcerned, as Eddie flattens his hands on Richie's chest, desperate to feel more, more. Through his shirt, Richie's skin is hot, the scent rising from the hollow of his throat so purely  _ Richie _ Eddie could burst into tears. He rubs the blunt tip of his thumb over one hard nipple, and Richie gasps around Eddie's tongue.

"Fucking Christ, Eds," Richie whispers. His fingers dig into Eddie's back. His breathing is shallow, his eyes enormous. Eddie's never seen anything so beautiful.

"Yeah," says Eddie. "Shit." He knows they should stop, think this through, talk it over before things get out of hand, but instead he grabs two handfuls of Richie's ass and licks his neck just below his ear. Richie grinds against him, and Eddie can feel that he's getting hard.

He catches his breath. That's Richie's  _ cock _ pressing up on his groin. Eddie has never touched a dick besides his own, not even through clothes, and they're standing here in the middle of a crowded, very public bar and Richie is practically dry humping him.

And it's incredible. 

"Eds," Richie says breathlessly. "What the fuck is this?"

"What does it fucking feel like?" Eddie snaps, rolling his hips so his own erection drags against Richie's. Richie makes a small, delicious sound.

"I can call a cab," he suggests.

Eddie runs his hand up the back of Richie's neck and grabs a handful of his curls, pulling back softly and watching his throat work as he gasps. "I can't wait that long," Eddie says.

  
  
  


The bathroom door slams open so hard Eddie's genuinely--if very briefly--concerned they may have broken something. Then Richie is on him again, or he's on Richie, a tangle of teeth and limbs and heat and need. There's a short disagreement regarding which of them is pinning the other against the wall, but Eddie lands on top, Richie's wrists pliant in his hands and Richie's mouth warm around his tongue. There are about a thousand things Eddie should be freaking out about right now--he's  _ in a public bathroom, _ which is usually grounds for a panic attack all on its own--but he can't think of anything besides getting his hands on more of Richie.

"Eds," Richie whimpers, thrusting his hips frantically, and Eddie doesn't need any more encouragement to grab for the bulge between his legs. There's… fuck, there's a  _ lot _ of it, and Eddie runs his palm up and down, loving the way Richie squirms.

"Richie, I want to--uh--" He chickens out and can't say the words, but hopefully the motion of his hand makes his meaning clear. Now the nervousness is starting to hit, but it's mostly just  _ what if I'm not good at this? _

"Yeah, fuck, that's good, I want you to," Richie pants.

"I'm gonna, it's just." Eddie buys a little time by running his hands under Richie's shirt. "I haven't done this before. So just… tell me if I should do something different. Okay?"

Richie goes still.

_ Fuck. _

"What's wrong," Eddie asks, his lips brushing against Richie's suddenly unresponsive skin.

"Eds, I… God dammit. I'm going to regret this so fucking much," Richie groans. "But don't you think your first time with a guy should be, like, special? Not some random club hookup?"

Eddie actually flinches, pulls away from Richie like he's gotten an electric shock. Oh, he's an  _ idiot. _ Richie kissed him back, and Eddie thought--he thought they meant the same thing. He let himself think, for a moment, that Richie wanted him for real.

But Richie's just drunk and horny and down for a friendly fuck.  _ Some random club hookup. _ Eddie rubs his hands over his face, horrified to realize there are tears in his eyes.

"Hey, what? Are you okay?" Richie asks. "I'm not saying I'm not into this. I just--"

"No, it's great," Eddie says, knowing Richie doesn't deserve the bitterness in his voice, knowing it's not Richie's _ fault _ he doesn't feel the same way. "It's a great random hookup. You're right, though. My first time should be with someone who cares about me."

Richie looks stunned, like Eddie has somehow hurt _ his _ feelings, which would be hilarious if Eddie didn't want to die.

"You don't think I care about you?"

"Not the way I care about you," Eddie says, because fuck it, at this point. He's about to cry in a public bathroom with his dick still hard, what dignity does he have left to protect?

"Eddie." Richie's voice is urgent. "What way is that?" He reaches for Eddie's arm, but Eddie pulls away.

"Don't make me say it."

"Please," Richie says quietly, but Eddie just shakes his head.

Richie takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay, then I'll say it." And he sounds--so nervous, and so tender, that Eddie can't help feeling a little pang of hope.

"Say what?"

"That I'm batshit in love with you and I always have been," Richie says in a rush, "and I thought you just wanted to hook up, but if you want more than that, so do I."

"Oh," says Eddie stupidly, and kisses Richie again.

This time it's less hurried, less urgent. He traces the circle of Richie's mouth with his tongue, muffling the sweet noises Richie makes. One of Eddie's hands is buried in Richie's curls; the other fumbles with his belt. He's not losing any more time.

Except then Richie pulls away _ again, _ and Eddie is on the verge of a total meltdown.

"What now?" he groans, trying to drag Richie back into the kiss. "You need to hear me say it back? I love you too, let's fucking go, Rich."

Richie laughs. "I  _ still  _ think this is an occasion that deserves better than a bathroom. God, Eds, this is--this is fucking it for me, okay? I want to tell our grandkids the story of how we got together." Something hot and shivery goes through Eddie when Richie says "together." "Can't we make it a little more, I don't know, romantic?"

Eddie starts to say "I don't need champagne and roses," but as he's opening his mouth it dawns on him that this is about what _ Richie _ needs.  _ Richie _ wants this to be romantic, because--

\--because Richie _ wants _ this. This matters to him. Richie's had his share of anonymous bathroom hookups, and he wants it to be different with Eddie.

If Eddie keeps almost crying while he has a hard-on, he's going to develop some fucked-up Pavlovian shit.

"You're right," he says. "Let's go back to your place."

"You said you couldn't wait that long," Richie reminds him.

"I'll be fine," Eddie says. "I'm just going to spend the whole cab ride telling you about everything I've ever wanted to do to you, to make sure you're as impatient as I am."

"Eddie," says Richie helplessly. "I fucking _ love _ you."

  
  
  


Eddie has never considered himself an accomplished dirty talker, but in the backseat of the cab, with his hand sliding up Richie's thigh, he can _ feel _ the effect his words are having. The power is going to his head.

"I’m so fucking excited to taste you,” he breathes in Richie’s ear, and Richie  _ whines. _ “I’ve been dreaming about this since I was thirteen years old. I can’t believe I finally get to  _ have _ you.”

“You can have me,” Richie whispers. “You can have anything.”

Richie’s house is dark and quiet until Eddie turns on every light he can reach. “I want to see you,” he says, his voice low, and Richie bites his lip and nods. Eddie steers them toward the guest room, not so much because that’s where all his stuff is as because he washed the sheets and made the bed this morning. Knowing Richie, the same can't be said for his bedroom.

Eddie pushes Richie onto the bed and straddles him, licking and biting his neck, collarbone, shoulders. He shoves the v-neck shirt up to Richie's armpits and runs his fingers over his broad chest. God, he's so _ big _ . Tall and muscular, not gym-toned, just strong. Eddie loves it all, the layer of softness with muscle underneath, the tang of sweat, the coarse dark curls of hair. He drags his tongue through the dip between Richie’s pecs, then lower, over his stomach.

Richie’s hips buck reflexively, and Eddie trembles as he looks up and meets his eyes. “Can I?” he asks, and Richie nods.

Eddie tries not to rush as he reaches for Richie’s fly. Slow and steady, he eases the zipper down and slips his hand inside.

"Baby," he whispers as he takes hold of Richie's cock. He's imagined this moment so many times, half in lust, half in fear, but mostly in the deep conviction that it would never, ever happen. And yet--it is. Richie's warm in his hand, and his skin is so soft, almost delicate over the incredible hardness beneath.

Eddie tightens the circle of his fingers and slides it up and down, so gently, as though he's afraid of damaging that tender skin. As if in response to the movement of his wrist, a drop of liquid pearls at Richie's tip. Mesmerized, Eddie leans in to lick it away.

"Ohhhh  _ fuck, _ " Richie sighs, which is approximately when Eddie remembers that there's a whole human person attached to this gorgeous cock. He tilts his head and smiles up at Richie, maintaining eye contact as his tongue darts out again.

"You taste so good," Eddie breathes.

Richie's dick twitches in his hand, as though preening at the compliment. "Eds," he murmurs, his voice choked with desire or tears or maybe both. Eddie knows the feeling. To show he understands, he swirls his tongue around the head of Richie's cock, then sucks it into his mouth. The noise Richie makes sounds vaguely like the words “don’t stop,” so Eddie doesn’t.

He  _ loves  _ this. He always thought he would. It feels incredible--the weight on his tongue, the way his lips stretch, the flare of the head against the roof of his mouth. And he’s not an expert, but the way Richie is spasming and gasping underneath him makes it seem like he’s doing a passable job.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Richie moans. Eddie runs his hands up and down Richie’s thighs through the jeans he’s still wearing, making wordless sounds of encouragement. Meeting Richie’s eyes is hard on his neck, but he does it for a moment just to see how flushed and disheveled and  _ pretty  _ Richie looks. Eddie can’t really smile at the moment, but he hopes Richie can see his happiness all the same.

He wraps a hand around the base of Richie’s cock, stroking the part he can’t fit in his mouth. His tongue traces a vein, and Richie trembles. All his life Eddie’s heard sucking cock described as an act of submission, or even degradation, but he’s never felt more powerful than he does right now, with Richie’s pulse throbbing against his stretched, sensitive lips.

Richie’s hips thrust reflexively, and Eddie has to press them back down so he doesn’t gag. “Eddie,” Richie groans. “I’ve gotta--I’m so close--”

Instead of pulling away, Eddie wraps his hands around Richie’s thighs, relaxes his jaw, and takes him as deep as he can stand. Richie goes taut underneath him, every muscle straining, and then releases all that tension in a gravelly roar as he comes down Eddie’s throat.

Pleasure rushes through Eddie, so intense he almost thinks he’s coming himself. He’s suddenly aware that his dick is painfully hard as he swallows around Richie’s cock. The sound of Richie swearing as he rides out his orgasm is impossibly beautiful. Okay, maybe this could have been a  _ little  _ more romantic--they’re both still dressed, for one thing--but God, it’s the happiest Eddie’s ever felt in his fucking life.

"I love you," he tells Richie, climbing back up his body to curl up against his chest.

"I love _ you, _ " Richie says, and dips his head for a kiss. Eddie hesitates for a split second, waiting for that voice in his head to start screaming  _ unsanitary! _ But the voice is silent, and he loses himself in the warmth and tenderness of Richie's lips.

"That was so fucking good," Eddie says when they separate.

Richie grins. "I think that's my line."

"No, I--fuck, Rich, I've wanted to do that for so long."

"Really?" Richie props his head up on his hand, and Eddie presses a kiss to his jaw.

"Yeah. You know, I saw you on TV once, when I didn't remember who you were."

"What'd you think?"

Eddie knows he's blushing a little, but it doesn't matter. "I thought you were obnoxious, but I jerked off to you anyway," he says.

"Oh my God," Richie says, his grin so wide by now Eddie wonders if it hurts. "Please make sure you say that in my eulogy."

"I don't think they'll let me deliver the eulogy if I'm in jail for strangling you."

Richie kisses him again. "Eddie, my love, I have faith in your ability to frame Stan."

Eddie laughs and melts against him, rolling his tongue lazily into Richie's mouth. He's still hard, but feels no particular urgency about it. This is so good, just being here, feeling Richie's body next to him and knowing it's _ okay, _ that he doesn't have to pull away before Richie notices he's getting emotional.

"I know this is a little late, but I want to take your clothes off," he says. "Is that okay?"

"Only if you show me yours," Richie says. He sits up so Eddie can tug his shirt over his head, then lifts his hips as Eddie pulls his pants and boxers down.

Eddie sucks in a breath, openly staring. "Jesus, you're even better than I imagined."

"Yeah? You got a thing for dad bod?" Richie jokes self-consciously.

Eddie leans over to kiss him. "I have a thing for _ you. _ "

"Yeah you do," Richie says suggestively, raising his eyebrows. When he reaches to unbutton Eddie's shirt, Eddie tries not to pull away, but Richie sees his discomfort. "Eds, what's wrong?"

"It's…" Eddie looks away. "Just, you know, my scar. It's not exactly sexy."

"Hey." Richie cups Eddie's face in his palms. "Hey, we don't have to. You can fuck me with your shirt on from now until we're ninety, I don't care. I just want you to feel good. But I hope you know that I think you're hot as fuck, no matter what. Every part of you is sexy to me."

"You remember what it looked like in the hospital? It's still basically that, just not leaking anymore," Eddie warns.

"I would have ridden your dick in that hospital bed with tubes sticking out of your chest if your doctors wouldn't have killed me," Richie says, and Eddie bursts out laughing.

"I'm not joking!" Richie protests.

"I know," says Eddie. "You're never that funny when you mean to be." He catches his breath, says "Okay, fuck it," and starts unbuttoning his shirt.

Richie watches intently. When Eddie's chest is bare, he stretches out a hand, and Eddie braces himself. But instead of touching the scar, Richie grazes his thumb over Eddie's cheekbone, staring into his eyes.

"You are so goddamn beautiful," he says.

Eddie doesn't answer. The words are stuck in his throat.

Richie touches his cheek, traces the line where Eddie's dimple would be if he were smiling, then runs his fingertip across Eddie's lower lip. Eddie lets his mouth fall slightly open, grazes Richie's finger with his tongue. He finally meets Richie's eyes, and feels something leap between them like a spark.

Richie's hand caresses Eddie's throat, his collarbone, moving slowly lower. He touches Eddie's right nipple first--the unscathed one. It tightens under the warmth of his fingers, and Eddie can't stifle a small groan.

Then Richie strokes his left nipple. It's all skin graft and scar tissue, so Eddie barely feels the touch, but he shivers with something deeper than sensation as Richie drops his head to kiss it. His lips roam over the shiny, uneven surface of Eddie's reconstructed chest. Finally, he looks up.

"I love this," he says. "You know why?"

Eddie manages a strangled, "Why?"

"Because this is where you didn't die," Richie says, and Eddie grabs him by the hair and kisses the hell out of him.

"I think I stayed alive just so I could do this," Eddie breathes into Richie's ear. Richie whimpers and pushes his thigh between Eddie's legs, where the fabric of his pants is severely strained.

"What do you want, Eds?" he asks.

"I don't even know," Eddie says. He kisses Richie again, deep and dirty, then says, "That's not true. I know I want to fuck you. I want to be inside you more than fucking _ anything."  _ The way Richie bucks his hips at that is gratifying, to say the least. “But I also know we have to work up to that, and I need to come like five minutes ago. So maybe you can just jerk me off, and then another time--”

Richie rocks lasciviously against Eddie's hard-on. "What if you fuck my thighs?" he says.

Eddie's mind goes kind of blank. "What? What if I-- what?"

"Fuck my thighs," Richie says again, and Eddie didn't even really know that was a _ thing _ , but hearing the words in Richie's mouth sends flames licking up his spine.

"Shit, yeah, okay," he stammers.

Richie responds by pushing him back on the bed and tearing his pants off. He looks up at Eddie with a wolfish grin as he runs his fingers around the waistband of Eddie's briefs, then down into the creases of his groin, pulling the fabric thin over his leaking cock.

"Come _ on," _ Eddie urges.

"Sorry I'm taking a few seconds to enjoy my lifelong fantasy coming true, you demanding little bitch," Richie says, and Eddie's laughing as Richie drags his underwear down. The laughter frays into something a lot more choked and desperate as Richie runs one big hand up and down Eddie's length. "Oh, goddamn, your dick is incredible. I want it everywhere."

"Please, baby," Eddie says, not even sure what he's asking for.

"Okay," Richie reassures him. "I've got you."

Richie arranges them: lying on their sides, Eddie's chest against Richie's back. Then he reaches back and guides Eddie's aching cock into the hot, sweat-slick valley between his thighs.

"Oh fuck," Eddie moans, digging his fingers into Richie's skin everywhere he can reach, because it's good, it's  _ so good _ that he has to hold onto something or he'll just fly to pieces. "Oh fuck, Richie, you feel amazing." He thrusts fast and shallow, feeling the cleft of Richie's ass just above his cock, muscles flexing and clenching.

“Yeah, you like this?” Richie pushes back into him, squeezing his thighs tight and making Eddie sob. “Gonna come all over me just like this?”

“Fuck,  _ yeah _ , Rich, so fucking close--”

“I want it,” Richie grits. “Want your come running down my legs.” Eddie whimpers and fucks against him harder. “I want it in my mouth. In my ass. On my face.” Eddie bites into the meat of Richie’s shoulder to keep from screaming. Richie slides a hand down between his thighs to rub the head of Eddie’s cock, his thumb stroking over the slit. “Get it all over me so I know I’m yours.”

That sparks something deep and wild in Eddie. “Yeah? You want me to mark my territory? So all those twinks who were grinding on you tonight know whose ass this is?”

Richie laughs breathlessly. “You’re insane,” he says. “You have zero competition.”

“Richie, you had guys all fucking  _ over _ you. I wanted to kill them. Or just…” A thrust, a gasp. “Just bend you over and do this, right there.”

“Oh, shit, yeah. Fuck, Eds, I’d let you. I’d beg for it.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, feeling his coherence slip away, the coiled heat of his waiting orgasm threatening to engulf him. “Yeah, ‘cause you’re mine.”

“So fucking yours, baby,” Richie groans, and it’s the  _ baby _ that sends Eddie roaring and cursing over the edge. Richie goads him on with filthy endearments, catching most of the come in his hand, Eddie clinging to Richie’s back until the shaking subsides.

Richie turns his head so Eddie has a clear view of him lifting his hand to his mouth and slowly, wickedly, licking his fingers clean. “Jesus,” Eddie murmurs, rocked by another spasm. “You can’t be that hot when I just came. You’re gonna kill me.”

“Mmm,” Richie sighs, like he’s savoring a glass of good wine. Eddie buries his head in the pillow and lets out a tiny scream.

“I love you,” he says, a minute or an hour later, drifting in blissful half-consciousness.

“I love you too,” Richie says. “Hey Eds?”

“Yeah?”

“Does this mean the next time we go out, you’ll dance with me?”

Eddie chuckles. “Now that I know  _ this _ is the alternative? No fucking way.”


End file.
